It is not so much a matter of rational thinking, but of belief. You are limited by your belief systems.  If you don't believe in heaven, you may not be able to find it.  You have to have an open mind, and not / Eventually, if one were to be stuck, one could find the way out, but only if one had an open mind, and asked for help.


M

I wonder if there is ANY rationality - Presumably the major reason to practice lucid dreaming is to develop the ability to choose where we go when we stop employing the usual rational mechanisms. Thus, I suspect that being chased by the hounds of hell would lead to a response based on belief, as Doc mentioned, plus the same kind of thinking that we normally experience when sleeping.

But if belief is sufficient, maybe I should start practicing belief in a heavenly muzzle.

d

wonderful25 wrote on Nov 20^th, 2006 at 3:39pm:


I would assume if someone got themselves in that situation, they wouldn't be rationally thinking how did I get here and how do I get out.  They'd be initially only responding to their immediate situation.  Perhaps after many repetitions of this, one might begin to tire of it and that momentary window of opportunity might be the thing that makes them aware of what is really going on.  They might also become aware that there is actually a Helper nearby trying to help.  You might also assume that that kind of situation might be just like physical life, where we tend to find ourselves in a loop of our own problems, going through the same trials and tribulations over and over until we get tired of it and discover a way out.  I think we will continue to experience our problems we create until we learn from them, or decide it's time to make a change.  That little bit of conscious effort can make all the difference. 

we need you here unmuzzled preferably

LOL...I'm pretty sure he plans on muzzling the hounds...

oh thanks girls, love a different perspective...you're right Bets; when a coon took my duck I didn't know whose side to be on, the duck or the coon.
I was the first person in the history of a small town to drive to the vet to euthanize my duck. so hmmm. if being chased by hell hounds, turn round and command them to cease and desist their naughty behavior, if that doesn't work exit your body before they begin chomping on it!  that makes more sense Cricket, wow, I have been apologizing to Dave awhile now, lol, I love something I don't understand. I do love him. never know what he's going to say for one thing.
cheers, alysia

your a very passionate writer Dave. I can appreciate that. well, I agree partially, belief systems are important to examine because it is the belief system which colors our perceptions of life, showing us only what we can fathom or relate to.

in karmic situations, its not so much what do you do but why did you do it? the guy who shoots somebody because he's under orders gets a much lighter sentence than the guy who kills for the thrill of it. I'm more of an optimist than yourself but I also agree to love passionately is what life is all about. karma is yet another belief system we can move beyond it to a point where the past simply has all been tidied up and all debts repaid, then theres simply nothing to complain about and so the road is open highway, no red lights to wait at.
heres an example of how belief systems don't supercede the heart of the matter.
I studied death all my life, must be my planets or something...I spoke with the other world. I knew that there is no death, yet why couldn't I get out of going through the grief of losing my soul mate? its because no matter if you "know" and you believe, we still get the real message lies in the heart.
I think grief is very valuable because maybe we come here to laugh but not all our laughter and cry, but not all our tears. in the end we are not what our emotions have said to us, we are more than our emotional body and more than our beliefs. we are more likely, what our experiences have made us, but it keeps going from there, so I give up! won't catch me thinking too much on woulda, coulda, shoulda, thats a big trap. I'm glad you can help those folks. they come to the right person I'm sure.

OK Alysia - maybe I should take a hint and ration my words - but I tend the other way ... sorry. But the point is not so much a matter of passion as what appears to be a different type of conceptualization and thought.

Beings of all levels that I've encountered in the space of the "spirit world" (including regular folks doing a regression) have a certain level of logical existence and logical thinking, but it seems to be extremely primitive - what psychologists call "primary process" - a collection of feelings and reactions that are more or less equated together in a nominal manner. Thus a brick has "brickness" but does not also mean potentiality for major construction etc. Thus, "coffee" equals the experiences that coffee beings. To "have coffee" brings those the experiences.

If the attachment to those experiences is negative, such as killing the Starbucks clerk over a caffe latte with too little foamed milk, then to "have coffee" also means "having a murder". It seems to be outside of time, as if the murder, last week, has been brought forward and is active in our attachment to it, despite awareness that it is not now ongoing. The feeling seems to be, "I am that which does murder. I am the murdered. My life is that which kills that which is infinitely loving. I am worthy of my death." or some such thing.

This kind of thinking is based on states of existence and associated feelings, evoking attitudes toward reaction. This is OK so long as it attaches to something, in which case it actually can lead through a series of associations toward a conclusion. A therapeutic remark might then be, "You fear God because you made a mistake. Allow God to help by going into the Light and abandoning the nature of your past errors. Remember the story of the Prodigal Son." This usually seems to be appropriate, just as a priests exhortation after Confession, "Go thou and sin no more."

Another example with entities, cccasionally someone responds, "My friends are here with me. I don't want to leave them." That's another expression of a concrete situation and feeling. So we tell them, "OK - go as a group." often a totally new idea.

What is unavailable seems to be the ability to select a topic not immediately at hand, through abstraction, and to view abstractions comparatively. Abstract comparisons are the core of "secondary process", or "rational thinking". This I have not encountered - not even with everyday people in regressions (eg: deep hypnosis). Thus, the kind of thought that occurs in the spirit world is not "rational" but totally concrete, primary. This is a nominal equation of events and states without projection. A state of being equals a state of feelings equals a tendency to react in a specific manner.

Lucid dreaming allows us to guide our states, feelings and responses. Tibetan "Yoga of the Dream State" thus aims at control of the spirit world states.

I feel that our ability to dream with lucidity is all we get. But we are unable to perform abstract conceptualizations in that state, so we have little luck "rationalizing away" our status. Then "murder is murder" and cannot be reduced to "a necessary act under the circumstances because I had a bad night and the clerk was a schmuck anyhow" etc. A choice of will, "I SHALL keep with me awareness of love and security" or belief, "I have a Cosmic Muzzle with which to thwart the Hounds of Hell" might work, providing that we hold onto it. The Bardo Thodol discipline favors belief plus understanding for those not capable of the Dream State Yoga.

Dreams seem to respond to their own projections. To dream of school carries projection of a desire for learning. As we alter our response to that, we create a different scene. Now we're in class. We respond to that, fear of taking an exam may be fear of moral failure, leading to other scene changes, perhaps a street setting, on and on without resolution. In regression, recollection of guilt often brings a sense of "something unpleasant" chasing us, which leads to a sense of being trapped while mortal threat looms, running in panic etc. In other words, feedback without limitation by thought creates our own "hounds of hell".

Soul retrievals seem to offer useful practice of thinking in the spirit world. The same lucidity seems to be what is needed in order to minimize the "hounds" and maximize the ability to employ our spiritual world passage usefully.

I wouldn't say that I'm passionate as much as that this all scares hell out of me, since I can see it looming just around the next corner. And the problem with that is that it doesn't scare heaven into me.

PUL
dave